Tips on How to Get More Blog Readers

After one year of blogging, I thought I’d share some tips on how to get more blog readers.

The key to getting folks to return to your blog is to be a really good writer. But if you’re like me and you aren’t, you can shoot for funny or interesting or educational or heart wrenching or just plain odd.

But the key to getting folks to find you in the first place lies in:

Categories, Tags and Titles

Categories: Uncategorized is the default category in Word Press and many other hosting sites. This makes you hard to find. No one types in uncategorized in their search bar.

If you have a target audience, post in that category. This is simple because you get to make them up. 😀 My initial target audience was just about anyone with time to kill, which is the same as Uncategorized. It took me a long time to realize a category might be a helpful addition.

Tags: Add topical tags to your post (WP recommends more than 5 and fewer than 9). People will often find you by your tags. I’ve used tags like Ruby Slippers and Goodnight Moon (because they were a part of a post) and for months, I would have people regularly returning to Fork in search of more ruby slippers and red balloons.

Titles: This is the big one. Accidentally mislead with your title by using a common saying or term that makes people think your post is about something entirely different. This has happened to me several times. My top three accidentally misleading titles have been:

1. Number one, by far: Dead Man’s Hand. I’d never heard of a Dead Man’s Hand. I don’t play poker, but I do have Ace’s and Eight’s from time to time.

2. I Do All My Own Stunts This was a post about my inordinate clumsiness, not about jumping cars with motorcycles.

My degree of separation from Kevin Bacon is probably similar to my degree of separation from Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney – although their separation from each other seems to be miniscule. I’m from Iowa, so I can’t ignore the caucus tonight.

Just in case someone searches for the Iowa Caucus results and lands here, I don’t want to be misleading. It’s 1:45 a.m. and the Republican party just announced that Romney has won by an 8 vote degree of separation! That’s just incredible. Whatever your political persuasion, never think your vote doesn’t count!

I’ll re-post the 4th misleading title tomorrow. In the mean time, if you want to add readers, you might want to consider 7 Card Stud or Texas Hold’em (I’m sure there’s a misleading post coming with that title soon)!

Thanks for sharing your experience. I need all the help i can get. I have been adding some tags. On the categories, i have not gotten that down yet. Still learning and researching everyday. Maybe that is why i don’t get much done during the day. Sure hope they move you all down this way. You are a writer, don’t tell your self that you are not a writer ever again. I believe you could write ebooks. Pursie, goes to the Vet today, hope the vet is better than the Doc, i got yesterday. I just wasted my time going there.

Debby – On the day I wrote Dead Man’s Hand, I had 1503 hits! I pretty sure no one who was looking for poker tips ever came back! 😀
I really wrote this tongue in cheek, I’m the last person that would ever presume to give blogging advice. Sometimes my humor misses the mark. 😉
Debbie